martin kihn

2024’s most popular guest columns offer a snapshot of an industry in flux – and one that’s grown cynical due to repeated promises of unrealized change.

Data and ad tech experts at Programmatic IO in Las Vegas discuss how brands can make better use of their first-party data by working more closely with walled gardens – whether brands like it or not.

The anonymous alphanumeric string made and lost fortunes in its short but eventful life. It was best-known for something it wasn’t actually designed to do: targeting ads.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times implicated the ad industry in many dismal practices, including election-rigging, news-defunding and even inflation. To make a case for the defense, start with these four myths.

This article is based on interviews with participants. Martin Kihn speaks to all the main players. It was inspired by Microsoft’s supposedly surprising selection as Netflix’s ad tech partner. But driven by the acquisition of AT&T’s Xandr, that’s just the latest chapter in a breathtaking adventure of pivots, write-downs, partnerships and potential.

In the past month, there’s been a flurry of Privacy Sandbox-related news. Are we on the brink of adopting universal standards for targeting and measurement? Salesforce’s Martin Kihn says “Not quite.”

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, senior vice president of marketing strategy, Salesforce Marketing Cloud.  Considering the future of post-cookie ad data management, a dominant scenario goes like this: Brands gather more first-party data from customers, […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, senior vice president of strategy, Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Measurement is a footnote – outglamorized by targeting and the opera of browsers, pushed into the corner during debates about the future […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, senior vice president of marketing strategy, Salesforce Marketing Cloud.  In late April, Google announced in-market tests for some of the proposals in its Privacy Sandbox, where the cookie-free web is […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, senior vice president of marketing strategy, Salesforce Marketing Cloud.  NASA director: This could be the worst disaster NASA’s ever experienced. Gene Kranz: With all due respect, sir, I believe this […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, senior vice president of marketing strategy, Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Martin will present “The Cookieless Web And The Future Of The DMP” at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview conference, being held […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, an independent analyst. Marketers of the world, unite your identity graphs! You have nothing to lose but your fear. As the triopoly marches on, the rest of us […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research vice president at Gartner. In a muted squib released last week, Google signaled it would no longer include user IDs with log files from its industry-leading ad server. […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research vice president at Gartner. People who believe Cambridge Analytica put our president in office aren’t thinking very hard. We know how advertising works: It hardly works at […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research vice president at Gartner. We’ve looked at marketing clouds from both sides now, up and down – and still, somehow, it’s their illusions that we recall. Do […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research vice president at Gartner. Inspired by results from retargeting, marketers are scrambling to stitch together customer data, unleash machine learning and deliver personalized experiences in display and […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research vice president at Gartner. In a recent AdExchanger Talks podcast, Nate Woodman of IPONWEB surfaced the specter of what we might call the brand-gorithm: a proprietary algorithm […]

 Martin Kihn, Research VP at Gartner, will speak about the state of mar tech and ad tech at Programmatic IO on April 5 in San Francisco. Ad tech and mar tech may not converge after all. Two years ago, Gartner analyst Marty Kihn predicted that owned media (mar tech) and paid media (ad tech) technologies would come […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research vice president at Gartner. “You would think that the digital advertising industry has found religion given all the talk about the legendary ‘holy grail’ these days.” So […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research vice president at Gartner. A few years ago, a pair of researchers from Google and Microsoft named Randall Lewis and Justin Rao circulated a depressing paper called […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research vice president at Gartner. More than a century ago, two titans emerged from the wreckage of the railroad wars. The prickly Jay Gould ran the Union Pacific, […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research director at Gartner. Despite what you’ve heard, this is not the first generation to face the rush of disruption, crumbling institutions and fortunes made by mysterious engineers. […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research director at Gartner. There is an acute and growing skills gap that threatens the success of many otherwise admirable ad tech companies. Worse than the well-known shortage […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research director at Gartner. It should be obvious by now that the emerging class of providers known as digital marketing hubs or clouds rely on a smart combination […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research director at Gartner. The fast-twitch distinctions between agencies and marketing software, low-margin analysts and high-margin code, are rapidly disappearing. Inspired by their investors, software startups trip over […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Martin Kihn, research director at Gartner. You can’t swing a cat video in the marketing and ad tech space these days without hitting someone who says they have a hub, […]